Sorry for the long post, but I feel like there are a lot of possible variables at play here.
My girlfriend and I got our resident cat Sass almost a year ago, and she's about 14 months now. I'm her clear favorite. I'm the only one she wants to play and cuddle with. However, I realized she's a very social cat and gets depressed when no one is home with her (we work), so we decided to get a second cat to be her friend.
Enter Gene. She's a resocialized feral we adopted from a pound 3 months ago, making her about 7 months now. We've been slowly introducing the two, and we've been trying to take it extra slow because Sass weighs at least twice as much as Gene and is the most muscular cat I've ever seen in my life, and we don't want Gene to get hurt. So we started with basic scent exchange, then we started feeding them on other sides of a door and slowly getting them closer to each other and then we started opening the door, and once they were comfy with that, we started taking Gene out in her carrier so they could interact more. Finally, a little over a month ago, we were able to have them be around each other for short amounts of time without anything separating them, and both interactions went surprisingly well but had to be cut short because Gene would sniff Sass on the nose, bap her lightly on the head, and then turn her back on Sass (kinda like she was expecting to be chased). The behavior appeared to be playful, but it seemed to agitate Sass, so we'd quickly separate the two of them once it started. Still, it seemed we were making good progress.
But the more time goes on, the more aggressive Sass is getting, and not just to Gene, but to me. After Gene got fixed, it's like Sass (who is also fixed) regressed all of a sudden and has started attacking Gene through the door and attacking me for interacting with Gene. I think part of the issue is that Gene usually lives in my gf's room, but after the surgery, we moved her to my room because I took time off work to watch her. But my room is Sass' favorite place to be. Gene has since been moved back to my gf's room, but weirdly, the aggression didn't start until AFTER Gene was moved back to my gf's room.
Some examples of the aggression: I cracked Gene's door to make sure she was okay, and when I shut it (without even going in) Sass jumped up to claw my hand that was on the door knob, leaving deep gashes. After playing with Gene and then playing with Sass, I tried to pick up Sass (which she's usually fine with), and she bit me hard enough to draw blood, even though my shirt. I put Gene in a carrier to take her to the vet, and when we got home, Sass made an angry cat sound, charged me, and shredded my calf, leaving gashes and even bruising. She's done attacks similar to these three about a dozen times total in the last month.
Incidents like these are becoming more and more common, and I'm not sure what to do. And what's weird is that we've previously had successful short interactions with the two cats existing in the same room with zero aggression, and Sass isn't aggressive with my gf or anyone else at all. It's just me, her favorite human, and only after I interact with Gene. And what's really weird is that they can still eat basically side by side (through a cracked door) with no issues. And there's no hissing or growling or anything before most of these attacks. Sass will be dead silent with no warnings (whiskers and ears will be in a neutral position and she does no hissing, growling, spitting, puffing up, back twitching, tail swishing, etc.) before the attack. At most, she'll breathe a couple times in this loud and heavy way (not really a spit, just very loud breathing) a few seconds before attacking me, but even that's rare.
After the last attack I detailed above (almost 2 weeks ago), I went out and got a feliway multicat diffuser. It seemed to work well enough, but Sass has still attacked me twice since getting it, including once today. They've at least been less violent and less frequent attacks, but still. Before we got Gene, Sass showed zero signs of aggression other than being a bit rough when playing, but it was obviously playful, and saying "ow" would make her immediately stop and walk away. Neither of those things are true for this new behavior. And even after all these attacks, she still treats me as her favorite human, which is super confusing.
Is there anything we can do? Both my vet and local pet store have recommended calming treats, but the pet store said they can be kinda intense and they only recommend them if nothing else works. The vet also wants to examine Sass, to make sure a health condition isn't triggering this, and we're working on scheduling an appointment. But is there anything else we can do in the meantime to lower her aggression? And are there any ideas as to why she's acting this way?
My girlfriend and I got our resident cat Sass almost a year ago, and she's about 14 months now. I'm her clear favorite. I'm the only one she wants to play and cuddle with. However, I realized she's a very social cat and gets depressed when no one is home with her (we work), so we decided to get a second cat to be her friend.
Enter Gene. She's a resocialized feral we adopted from a pound 3 months ago, making her about 7 months now. We've been slowly introducing the two, and we've been trying to take it extra slow because Sass weighs at least twice as much as Gene and is the most muscular cat I've ever seen in my life, and we don't want Gene to get hurt. So we started with basic scent exchange, then we started feeding them on other sides of a door and slowly getting them closer to each other and then we started opening the door, and once they were comfy with that, we started taking Gene out in her carrier so they could interact more. Finally, a little over a month ago, we were able to have them be around each other for short amounts of time without anything separating them, and both interactions went surprisingly well but had to be cut short because Gene would sniff Sass on the nose, bap her lightly on the head, and then turn her back on Sass (kinda like she was expecting to be chased). The behavior appeared to be playful, but it seemed to agitate Sass, so we'd quickly separate the two of them once it started. Still, it seemed we were making good progress.
But the more time goes on, the more aggressive Sass is getting, and not just to Gene, but to me. After Gene got fixed, it's like Sass (who is also fixed) regressed all of a sudden and has started attacking Gene through the door and attacking me for interacting with Gene. I think part of the issue is that Gene usually lives in my gf's room, but after the surgery, we moved her to my room because I took time off work to watch her. But my room is Sass' favorite place to be. Gene has since been moved back to my gf's room, but weirdly, the aggression didn't start until AFTER Gene was moved back to my gf's room.
Some examples of the aggression: I cracked Gene's door to make sure she was okay, and when I shut it (without even going in) Sass jumped up to claw my hand that was on the door knob, leaving deep gashes. After playing with Gene and then playing with Sass, I tried to pick up Sass (which she's usually fine with), and she bit me hard enough to draw blood, even though my shirt. I put Gene in a carrier to take her to the vet, and when we got home, Sass made an angry cat sound, charged me, and shredded my calf, leaving gashes and even bruising. She's done attacks similar to these three about a dozen times total in the last month.
Incidents like these are becoming more and more common, and I'm not sure what to do. And what's weird is that we've previously had successful short interactions with the two cats existing in the same room with zero aggression, and Sass isn't aggressive with my gf or anyone else at all. It's just me, her favorite human, and only after I interact with Gene. And what's really weird is that they can still eat basically side by side (through a cracked door) with no issues. And there's no hissing or growling or anything before most of these attacks. Sass will be dead silent with no warnings (whiskers and ears will be in a neutral position and she does no hissing, growling, spitting, puffing up, back twitching, tail swishing, etc.) before the attack. At most, she'll breathe a couple times in this loud and heavy way (not really a spit, just very loud breathing) a few seconds before attacking me, but even that's rare.
After the last attack I detailed above (almost 2 weeks ago), I went out and got a feliway multicat diffuser. It seemed to work well enough, but Sass has still attacked me twice since getting it, including once today. They've at least been less violent and less frequent attacks, but still. Before we got Gene, Sass showed zero signs of aggression other than being a bit rough when playing, but it was obviously playful, and saying "ow" would make her immediately stop and walk away. Neither of those things are true for this new behavior. And even after all these attacks, she still treats me as her favorite human, which is super confusing.
Is there anything we can do? Both my vet and local pet store have recommended calming treats, but the pet store said they can be kinda intense and they only recommend them if nothing else works. The vet also wants to examine Sass, to make sure a health condition isn't triggering this, and we're working on scheduling an appointment. But is there anything else we can do in the meantime to lower her aggression? And are there any ideas as to why she's acting this way?
